Mr. Gray is a free-lance writer from Calgary. He usually
writes on western subjects but in this article and the next one, he writes about
Expo as he saw it recently.

By JAMES H. GRAY

Special Journal Correspondence

CALGARY (Special) -- Next to money, there are three prime
requisites to enjoyment of Expo '67 -- time combined with a saintly tolerance
for humanity in the mass.

The flood of ecstatic prose that has been flowing from the
writers who have seen Expo on special tours and previews is all true. No one has
yet done justice to the magnificence of this show. But the ordinary fair-goers
will need dualities of mind and body that the press previewers never
needed.

*
* *

NONE OF THEM had to stand in line for an hour running, or
fight their way from one pavilion to another. They were guided around, and in
and out of back doors. The Expo of the cash customers is a different world to
the one everyone had been writing about.

How much time will you need to see Expo is in its entirety,
to enjoy to the full the magnificence of the spectacle being presented? The
question of time is like the question of money. It will cost you whatever you
can afford to spend.

To visit all the exhibits on a quick glance basis will take
a minimum of 10 days. Given good feet and leg muscles, patience and tolerance
and developed special interests, a month would not be too long.

True, residents of Québec, Ottawa and Toronto - Hamilton may
get the job done by one-day-at-a-time commuting during the summer.

But for the people of more remote regions, visits of less
than four days will not be worth making.

*
* *

WE SPENT almost 50 hours at Expo over a stretch
of six days. During most of that period a siege of rainy weather kept the crowds
down to about 150,000 a day. Thus the queues were short and we got into and out
of the pavilions with very little delay. And we saw barely half the
show!

We managed to visit only four out of 10 theme
pavilions. In some of these pavilions there were up to four separate
exhibits.

We made scarcely half the national pavilions and
only two of the provincial shows. We took in none of the theatrical
performances. It was an exhausting experience both mentally and physically but
delightfully so.

The problem which besets every visitor to Expo is
illustrated by the experience of a Regina business acquaintance. He was in
Toronto with a Sunday to kill so he took an early morning flight to Expo with
the idea of giving it a quick once-over.

He joined a throng of 350,000. By the time he had
ridden around the grounds on the Expo Express and the Minirail, the morning was
gone. He joined the queue at the Russian pavilion and found it so full of
fascinating things and people that he was there until closing time that
night.

In sharp contrast, that day, were the thousands
of Montréalers who were rushing in and out of one pavilion after another with
nothing more in mind than having their Expo passports stamped.

But for outsiders, the urge to stop and stare and
discuss will be irresistible in most of the national and cultural
pavilions.

*
* *

Worse, there will be a mounting need to visit
many of the exhibits a second and a third time.

*
* *

PERHAPS THE worst mistake visitors can make will
be to concentrate on the well-publicized pavilions. Some of the smallest nations
in the world have come up with exhibits that put the richest nations to shame.
Most fairgoers discover this by accident.

On a fine day, the queues in front of the big
nation pavilions become so large that you look around for buildings where the
line-ups are shorter. The queues are usually shorter at the small nations so
visitors flock there, and the queues build there too.

Many of the pavilions have seats for the
sore-footed. On a fine day there are even waiting lines of people prepared to
dart into the first vacated chair or bench.

The punishment to wind and limb comes not alone
from touring through the exhibits. Expo itself is so vast that getting from here
to there is both time and energy consuming.

*
* *

COVERING ABOUT 1,000 acres, Expo is spread over
two narrow islands and a long quay. The islands are broken up, attractively, by
ponds and waterways which, unhappily, have to be walked around to get from one
pavilion to another.

The transportation to, from and on Expo is
superbly efficient. But there is no avoidance of queues which are harder on the
feet and muscles than walking. On a big day, it can take up to 45 minutes of
standing in line to get onto the minirail.

The hours spent standing in lines at such
exhibits as the Telephone Pavilion, the Czechoslovakian movies etc. are never
regretted.

But the cumulative effect is hard on feet, and
totally destructive to any tight time schedule.

The impatient, of course, are everywhere. But as
they sneak up in the lines and dart from queue to queue they frequently become
direction-fouled and wind up back there they started.

At Expo, it is often the slowest moving line that
make the most headway. But it is headway at a pace that will ruin Expo for the
unwary who think they can get anything out of it in a two-day
excursion.

- End of article. Copyright by The Ottawa Journal, May
25, 1967. All rights reserved.